Feministival

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Feminist Humor

There's a widely-accepted misconception that women just do not possess the quality of being funny. Especially feminists get constant criticism for supposedly "taking the fun out of everything", for "not being able to get the joke", for "not grasping the irony here" and last, but not the least, feminists are accused of "taking everything way too seriously". When we say "That's nothing to be laughed at," do we limit the possibilities of humor, or do we bore people because we're aware that the laugh in question will hurt someone? Does laughter have a gender? What things does feminism 'keep' us from laughing at, how can our discontent with the humor at hand help us expand it? In this talk, we're going to talk of all the funny ladies in our lives and the potential empowerment through humor. We're going to discuss what other qualities automatically come with 'being funny' when it's a woman who's being funny, we're also going to talk about what you possibly cannot be when you're a funny woman. We're going to talk about women actors, writers, columnists and cartoonists, and their many different experiences of womanhood. We're also going to try to discuss the humor we use of in daily lives, we're going to discuss how we make each other laugh. Basically, we're going to try to find ways of being able to laugh without betraying one's own kind. We'll watch some videos and laugh. We'll probably make fun of ourselves in the meantime, too.